Always Black
by loveofwrittenword
Summary: When all is said and done, what's left? Does one question the realities of what-if and could something have been done differently? Or does one really question internally? What if I were different? War is never pretty or romantic, but in the aftermath it is difficult not to speculate what could have been . . . only if.
1. Mimicry

Disclaimer: Everything recognizable, including the words in **bold** taken directly from the books, belongs to J.K. Rowling and associates. No Copy Right Infringement is meant. Note: I had this posted elsewhere, but then realized I put it under the wrong name. Yes, I truly am that ditzy at times. But now it's at the rightful place.

**Always Black**

Mimicry

"_Most people are other people. Their thoughts are __someone else__'s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.__" _

—_Oscar Wi__lde_

.~~.

Hermione's POV – 3 May 1998 – Early Morning Hours

The putrid smell was still thick in my nostrils. I wondered if there would ever be a time I wouldn't remember the combined smell of rotting dead bodies, spilled blood, dirt and lifeless eyes never blinking again.

I rubbed at my nose, trying to displace the horrid smell. I never wanted to remember this, this awful aspect of war. And I was only eighteen. I had seen and done things that no one my age should have ever experienced. But as I came to learn, life made no distinction of age: only the choices of useless causes and those sadly caught in the unfortunate web.

I shook my head and willed the tears not to come. It seemed since the Final battle had ended only hours before that all I could do was cry. And I knew it got me nowhere; it didn't change the outcome or all the senseless lives lost for some pure-blooded only society ideology.

_What had been the point_? What had been the _bloody_ (most literally) damn point?

Slowly I climbed out of the Gryffindor portrait hole and made my way down the battle-strewed hallway; the evidence of war still so very evident.

My joints and bones creaked as I walked to my destination. It was as if I had simply aged years in the span of forty-eight hours. However the circumstances to my weariness were anything but simple.

Coldness seeped into my skin, as if the flesh were only paper thin. Though it didn't really help and the material was thin, I wrapped the borrowed cloak tighter around my emaciated frame. Being on the run and in constant hiding in a tent wasn't really conducive to eating properly, sensibly.

I willed the constant shivers from me, not that it really helped. My feet were silent as I tried my best to dodge all of the fallen bits of wall, the empty frames and blood splatters scattered across the stone floor. I had a purpose, and though everyone else was partaking in a nourishing and most replenishing sleep (from what I could see), my mind refused to shut down. I couldn't have lain in bed any longer, just tossing and turning. My body had been trained to be on a constant alert.

With what felt like forever and the slowest walk of my young (_young_ being open to interpretation) life, I had reached my destination.

I didn't really know why I wanted to come here, and why I was simply torturing myself, but my insatiable need to know had never relented. This intrinsic _knowledge_ is what I desired the most.

Would the object of my inquisition be here, I didn't know. I didn't even know where it was, but I had to try. It didn't matter what had happened earlier in this room, or simply down the short hall from here, I had to be here.

Fred's still, yet smiling face burst into my mind's eyes. The stillness of his features had been terribly unreal. He and George were always larger than life.

My eyes scrunched as I willed the awful image from my mind. I didn't need it now. There would be time later. I valiantly ignored the pounding in my head and the constant aches from my body. I could only imagine the state of my hair.

And arrived I did. Back and forth I began to pace, pulling the cloak even tighter around me.

_Would this work? Was it damaged beyond repair? Had the cursed fire finally fade_?

I didn't know.

I called myself a traitor: mostly to myself, to my Muggle parents, to every Muggle-born alive and to the cause I had so fearlessly fought for (for what seemed like the entire time I had been in the Magical world).

_Yes_, I was betraying everything I fought for, but my curiosity was strong, my need to know astounding. What was so very special about being the opposite of me? I desperately wanted (no needed) to know.

I _needed_ to know what the other side held . . . I _wanted_ to know what the other side was like . . . I terribly _craved_ to know what the other side was like.

There had to be an answer to my most ardent desire. I had to know that it wasn't so special; that everything I had fought for and the lives lost weren't in vain; that my entire belief system in magic wasn't for naught. _That there was nothing more spectacular about being a pureblood versus Muggle-born_! . . .

Thankfully, terrifyingly, _mystifyingly_ (as always) the door appeared. No matter how many additions of _Hogwarts, a History_ I read, there was never an explanation. The Room of Requirement seemed a big mysterious to everyone.

With an unsteady hand, but still covered with the cloak, I grabbed onto the brass doorknob and twisted. It didn't even have the well-mannered courtesy to squeak when opening. I thought it damaged beyond repair. I thought Crabbe's Fiendfyre curse would have ruined it. But some parts of magic must have still been undefined; defying logic, space, Muggle science and my imagination.

I still had the time to turn around, to simply toss my fool-notion aside. But no matter how many times I begged my mind and heart to relent, they ignored my pleas. Nothing could persuade me otherwise, not even the sudden presence of my beloved friend Harry. Some pursuits of knowledge were worth the sacrifice. Or so I always reasoned with myself.

Without haste, the thick wooden door opened and my hand dropped from the handle.

Caution was thrown into the metaphorical wind as my feet led me on.

As if the very image had been plucked from my unconscious mind, the room was in perfect alignment. My footfalls sounded around the cathedral-like ceilings, as the moonlight filtered in through the big stained-glass windows. Beautiful lights bounced off the unpolished wooden floor as thirty foot walls reached up to the curved ceiling. Silence was deafening to my ears. Silence was the loudest sound of all, or so I had once read. But I couldn't quite recall; my mind was a muddled mess.

The room was a perfect recollection of my mind's image, the details of the room exact, but the item which caught my immediate attention and stole the breath from my lungs was centered front. The aged-glass sparkled elegantly in the dim light of the colored windows. The rounded-edge of the frame and the gold-plated color were exactly as Harry had described. I was truly in awe.

Not only had my guess paid off, but the Room of Requirement was still functioning. The wonder of magic sparked sharply within me. I truly thought myself jaded because of the war, but it was terribly wonderful to be proven wrong. Even after all the death I had witnessed during the Battle of Hogwarts, magic still had the ability to astonish me.

Unknowingly, tears dropped onto my flushed cheeks. My bottom lip fell as I beheld the beauty of the mirror. It held the knowledge my heart sought after. I couldn't think of any other thing or person who could give me the answers. And the thought of asking Sybill Trelawney was utterly laughable.

As I slowly walked to the powerfully magical object, I replayed what Harry had once relayed to me. Yes, Dumbledore had told him it gave _**neither truth nor knowledge**_, but even he was fallible. Dumbledore didn't know everything, and I had to believe this was one thing he had got wrong.

I used to believe that the mirror would show me . . . unharmed from the war, Voldemort dead at Harry's feet and me in the arms of a certain crush. But that wasn't the case any longer. The war was over, Voldemort dead and I touched greatly from the battle. Besides the wounds, defiled scars and scrapes I had obtained from war, the greatest wounds were inside me. They pierced my soul greatly and left me feeling heavy.

Sometimes, in the quiet of the tent or in the dead of night while wearing the Horcrux, I could hear the whisperings.

_Imagine if you had been pureblood_ . . . _everything would be different_ . . . _You'd be invaluable to so many_ . . . _no dirty blood_ . . . _Power and unlimited possibilities placed before your pure feet_.

I had done my best to ignore the evil whisperings. I knew they held no truth. _A person's intellect in the Magical world had nothing to do with blood status_, I courageously argued back. _I was smarter than any of the so called purebloods in my year at school. I exceeded all their lowly expectations. My loneliness was simply an unfortunate side-affect. They couldn't appreciate my intellectual contributions to their rose-colored world_. _I wasn't just some Mudblood_.

Valiantly I fought back the voice, and when the Horcrux had been destroyed, I inwardly rejoiced. It was nothing but pure evil.

_The sad thing_? . . . the damage had already been done to my already skeptical self-esteem. Every now and then the whispers would crop up, telling me how my blood had been the determining factor to my third-class status in the Wizarding world.

It had been easier to ignore the whispering when I planned, read and simply fought for all I had believed in.

But with the war finally over and won, the dark whisperings had started again. It didn't help that the Cup Horcrux had added to my already deep misgivings.

So here I stood, in front of the only thing I could think of; the only thing which could give me a semblance of peace and perhaps truth.

_Dumbledore simply had to be wrong_.

Reverently I reached out, needing to make sure this was real and not some intricate musing of my sharp imagination.

Word carvings were felt under my fingers as I read the inscription written backwards – as if I were seeing them in a mirror. _**I show not your face but your heart's desire**_.

Oh, but I had a stinging, hurting, heavy desire to know.

_Was being pureblooded truly better than being Muggleborn_? There simply couldn't be a distinction. My magic, grades and performance had proved that to me more over. But the whisperings were still there, egging me on.

_Take a look, Hermione Granger – Mudblood. Look at what being pureblood is truly like. The mirror will speak the truth_, it simpered in my mind.

"It will show me there is no distinction," I rebutted, my voice wavering slightly as it bounced softly off the walls. "I am Hermione Granger – Witch. Blood as worthy for magic as any other."

Laughter seemed to reverberate in my mind, but I ignored the mad connotations.

The moment had finally come. On a whim and not even knowing if the mirror would appear, I had left the comfort of the Gryffindor common room and traversed the halls to the Room of Requirement. It was the greatest chance I had to know and take, and it had to be uninterrupted. Not to mention unfettered; there was no one to stop me. The use of Harry's borrowed Invisibility Cloak did help.

The moment started to feel oh so heavy in the room. I didn't know if it was my wild imagination or the culmination of the moment and the many times I had doubted my self-worth, but it had all built up to now. There was nothing impeding me.

With the utmost Gryffindor courage I could muster, I lowered myself on the floor before the mirror, pulled the cloak tighter around my body (having a part of my most beloved friend with me helped) and finally tilted the mirror to my view.

For several seconds, nothing happened. The looking glass remained solid, only showing my already known visage. Harry's cloak felt warm around my skin and the whisperings had diminished. The air in the room was too still. Nothing happened.

Sadly I leaned forward, keeping my eyes opened, but allowing my head to rest on the warm glass.

I had been quite the little fool. My greatest desire to know had been in vain and the mirror was broken or somehow stripped of its magic. Or perhaps the Room had given me a fake replica.

_It is all in vain_.

If I had been in my right mind, I would have noticed the glass was warm, instead of the coolness it should have reflected. If I had been in my right mind, I would have noticed the warmth of the cloak, instead of it being – in turned – warmed from my skin. But I didn't notice.

Too late my sharp gasp had come. Too late my mind finally registered. Too late I saw the young girl in the mirror: the one with my face, but with modifications. She had been beautiful, but still recognizable to me. Too late I had been.

As if time had been erased, I slowly wilted forward, my forehead slid from the mirror and the cloak wrapped tightly around me – without my doing it.

Darkness would soon consume me. It had not been for naught. Or perhaps everything had always been a figment of my imagination.

I didn't know anything, and everything supposed had seemed infinite. Blackness etched around the dim color of my sight before it finally took over everything.

It would seem . . . I knew no more.

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* * *

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Author's Note: Okay . . . what do you think? Are you confused yet (hehe)?

So this two part one-shot is my next inspiration or muse bunny (if you will). I've had this idea for a while, and again, things finally clicked. I enjoyed writing this immensely.

Whether she is out of character or not, I'm sure there had to be a time where Hermione would question everything: her life, if being pureblood was better than being Muggleborn. It is only natural we question what is unknown, what is different than what we know – is the grass really greener and so forth. It was the bases for this little inspiration.

So if you have the time, I'd LOVE to know your thoughts. Please! If you have any questions, or are plain confused, just ask.

The next (last) part is mostly written, just need to finish some loose ends and edit before posting it.

I hope all is well with everyone. Until next time, much love!


	2. Opposed Mirrors Reflecting

Disclaimer: Everything recognizable belongs to J.K. Rowling and associates. No Copy Right Infringement is meant. Note: Mention of child abuse, but not the actual action of it happening in the story; hope that makes sense.

**Opposed Mirrors Reflecting **

"_So, friend, when I first looked upon your face, our thoughts gave answer each to each. Opposed __mirrors__ each reflecting each, although I knew not in what time or place, methought that I had often met with you, and each had lived in other's mind and speech.__" _

—_Alfred, Lord Tennyson _

.~~.

As the fog began to clear and the disjointed mayhem in my mind dissipated, my surroundings became more focused. No longer was I stuck in a world where death and blood coated my skin; where the smell of fire and decay refused to leave my senses. I felt the skin on my face and around my nose tightened as I cringed. Never had I smelt something so foul and pungent. A mixture of scents I knew would be seared forever into my memory. It was beyond ghastly.

My eyes seemed almost too weak to open, as if I had spent the last forty-eight hours with no sleep. I could only image the state of my hair and the many tangles that would ensnare it.

When I expected to see light filter between my partially opened lids, all that came was darkness, with a very dim flickering light. I couldn't understand what was happening or where I may have been. I could feel my heart start to pound even more loudly in my ears. Fear seemed to waft off of me in waves.

As I went to move, needing to become somewhat familiar with my surroundings, the silkiness of the sheets was the first thing I registered before the pain became almost blinding. Nothing made sense and all became lost in the agony.

_Why hadn't I felt it upon waking_? my mind pleaded. _Where was I? What had happened to me? Who was responsible for my utter confusion and the hysteria running havoc in my veins_?

I tried to speak aloud. Perhaps someone was near and could answer questions I couldn't even fathom above the pain. However, the only thing to leave my dry, chapped lips was soft, anguish-filled groans. Everything seemed to be sore, but the part which pained me the most was my back. It truly felt as if the skin had been peeled from my muscles with someone's bare hands. I wondered if my backbone was literally visible.

"Hush, sissy. You shall be well again." Unwelcomed and confused tears filled my tired stinging eyes. I didn't recognize the voice, nor could I empathize with the love which tinged the tenderly spoken words.

I wanted to ask more than anything '_who had spoken to me so lovingly'_, but couldn't string the words together. Everything was a dry jumble of sounds in my throbbing throat.

Over and over I tried to wet my throat, but my mouth didn't seem to want to make any saliva. Perhaps it had all been converted to my useless, salty tears. As I tried to move, to find any position that would be somewhat more comfortable than the anguish I was in, nothing but pain flared.

Immediately my eyes stung with the free flowing tears, as wave upon wave of torture flooded my body. It was beyond anything I had ever felt, even in the "dream" I had just had.

I couldn't distinguish between what was real and what was surreal.

Had I just taken part in some imaginary battle at Hogwarts? Had I truly watched people I loved being killed and sacrificed for some totally insane notion of blood supremacy? Had I gone completely insane and broken into a place which was reputed to be the most magically protected establishment in all of Wizarding Britain? If all these things had truly happened, where was it all now? Why was I lying in a silk-covered bed with my back on fire? Why wasn't I out on some battlefield bleeding, or helping to round up the fallen victims?

Nothing made sense out of the utter chaos and no answers were forthcoming. The only thing that seemed to comfort me was an unknown voice filled with a love I didn't understand or feel in return. _Or did I_?

"'Oo t-there?" I finally asked, able to get even that much out of my desiccated throat, above the agony.

Again, I was taken by surprise. The sound of my voice was unrecognizable. It was also scarily funny that such a random thought would run through my mind amidst the pain.

"It's okay, sissy. The confusion will soon pass. I promise," the soothing, yet oddly young voice consoled me. Who was this "sissy" person? The only name I could associate myself with was Hermione. I was she, and she was me.

"Just breathe. You know mother won't heal these wounds. At least for a while yet and with father being away, well . . . I'm trying the best I can to take away the worst of the pain, but I only have this salve Uncle gave me."

I didn't know how to respond; if there was anything I could actually say. The only thing I wanted – beside the immense pain to stop – was this so called confusion to lift. I couldn't remember this voice that spoke to me, I couldn't remember any salve and surely this _Uncle_ was just as much an anomaly. And above all what kind of mother wouldn't heal a child's pain? What mother would allow a child to suffer so, and _Merlin above was I suffering_. I didn't know how I was able to sustain such pain without constantly screaming my voice raw. Or perhaps I already had.

As I went to try and speak again, the heat flared relentlessly in my back, my teeth dug unforgiving into my tongue. I could now taste the bitterness of blood filling my mouth. Bile rose in my throat and scorched the lining even more. I wanted to pass out. I wanted to be relieved of this pain any way possible. It was truly unsustainable.

"I'm so sorry, sissy," the young – too young – voice repeated over and over. Soft hands could be felt on my battered skin as something was removed and then as gently as possible replaced. Whimper after pathetic, useless whimper left my chapped lips. "I'm almost done. I just need to replace these strips, sissy. Mother said if you wish to be a Mudblood, then you have to be healed like a diseased one. I know you don't want to be a useless muggle, sister. You can't help what you dream. She is just upset. All will be well in the morning . . . you'll see."

I wondered if this young person actually believed the platitudes he fed me. His voice was uneven and he sounded as if he was just mumbling, trying to make sense out of the insensible. I was a _Mudblood_ as he so naively put it, but not _diseased_. My parents hadn't been _useless muggles_, and I surely couldn't _help_ what I _dreamed_. And above all else, what kind of woman – mother – would punish a child for something beyond their control? It didn't matter how upset she may have been.

Would all truly be well? It was a question I didn't want answered.

Strip after strip was replaced on my back as more blood filled my mouth where I continued to bite down on my tongue. After the torture was done and each new strip had been replaced over another gash in my back, I whimpered in thankfulness. The skin on my cheeks was tight from where my salty tear tracks had dried.

"There you are, sissy. You'll be well in the morning. You just have to b-be." And the voice finally broke.

The young one had been so brave, so valiant as my wounds were cleansed and taken care of. But now that the task was complete, my supposed sibling fell apart. There was nothing left to occupy the agonized time. We were both left to the silence of our tears and grief-stricken moans.

Warm body heat suffused into my skin as (whom I could only assume was) my brother cuddled up to my side. He was careful not to touch any part of my flesh where the clean strips (soaked in some kind of salve) layered my torn back.

Soft strokes were felt in my hair as his tender fingers ran over my scalp. It surprised me how his fingers didn't become entangled in my wild curls. Surely the state of them must have been disarrayed.

Little by little the immense pain receded, and even though I wished it had been a lot more, any small measure of relief was welcomed.

I wanted to say thank you – I wanted to say anything to my young hero/caretaker, but my lips were unresponsive. My facial muscles were just too worn out from cringing and trying to fight off the pain in any manner I could.

"Hush, sissy. You need not thank me." I didn't know this boy from Merlin, but he seemed quite the opposite. He seemed to be able to read me easily, as if he was privy to my thoughts. It was beyond scary and daunting. "You'd do the same for me." His fingers still swept through my hair in a soothing manner that was lulling me to sleep. It seemed to be the only thing that was quieting my pain.

"I know you don't mean to be different, sissy, but I wish you wouldn't. Sometimes I'm scared . . . scared you will say something which will send mother over the edge of no return. Why can you not have these dreams?" His voice was becoming shakier and more emotional as he asked me questions I had no answer to or recognition of. "Can't you stop, Hydra? Can't you please stop for me . . . for Sirius?"

Wave after wave of hysteria and vertigo hit me. If I hadn't been lying down, surely I would have toppled over. The only thing I could understand out of his insane mumblings was the name Sirius. The name Hydra was as foreign to me as this sweet boy next to me. Sirius was long gone, yet this boy-child seemed to think otherwise. What kind of rabbit hole had I fell into?

"Don't u-u-understand," I finally mumbled painfully, swallowing the residue blood in my mouth. I wanted to sick it all back up. One wasn't meant to swallow blood.

"You do, Hydra!" he continued to call me, as if it would stir some long forgotten memory in me. "Think, sissy. You aren't this Hermione girl. You aren't some common mudblood; just saying so sends mother over the edge, and then Sirius when he tries to protect you so. We are better than they. We don't have sludge in our noble veins. Why must you have these dreams," he asked me brokenly.

My heart now seemed to hurt even worse than my back. This tragically broken boy was crying and hurting and pleading for someone I couldn't recognize.

"S-Sirius," I whimpered, trying to get out any information he could tell me. I needed any kind of clarification.

"You recognize the name?" he asked, a little hope lining his dejected voice. I nodded my head slightly and then winced when another wave of pain shot through the torn skin on my back.

"He's our brother, Hydra. He's the oldest by a little over a year. He's off to Hogwarts soon. I know he really wants to go, no matter what he claims. He just doesn't want to leave us defenseless." I could hear the fear in his young voice. He didn't want his brother to leave as much as Sirius didn't want to. I could only surmise that Sirius somehow was our protector. _Our shield_.

And at that thought, something triggered in my mind. Small flashes started to race through my mind. The light from the fast-moving pictures were all but staggering and blinded me with their brilliance.

_Shiny raven hair . . . mischievous face . . . sneaking around downstairs to watch all the pretty women dancing with their partners . . . lessons on etiquettes and proper decorum . . . playing at the seashore . . . _pureblood_ . . . dancing lessons . . . Yule tide celebrations with extended family . . . grandfather sneaking me chocolates . . . brothers crying with me after a severe punishment . . . Sirius standing between mother and me . . . Sirius yelling at her to stop using dark magic on me after only waking up from uncontrollable dreaming . . Father hitting mother about the face and her falling down . . . Sirius wiping yet more tears that fall helplessly . . . Sirius singing me from my pain while playing with my perfectly straight raven-colored hair . . . Sirius . . . Regulus . . . Hydra . . . me_ . . .

_I wasn't this Hermione . . . I wasn't she . . . I hadn't fought in some battle . . . I wasn't Muggle-born . . . Dirty blood didn't flow through my veins . . . Draco Malfoy was nonexistent . . . Good hadn't finally triumphed over evil . . . Harry wasn't my most beloved friend . . . I wasn't Mudblood_.

Pureblood_ . . . Hydra Melania Black_.

I was she and she was me.

"Reg?" I whimper through the utter upheaval and bedlam of my mind.

"Yes, sissy," he answers, hopeful happiness filling his voice beyond belief.

He knew I was regaining my memories and for a little while longer, at least until the dreams of Hermione the Muggle-born returned, I would be fine and all _would be well in the morning_.

"You're Hydra and I'm Regulus, your brother. Welcome back, sissy." His tears of relief fell onto my upturned cheek.

And goodness, what a painful homecoming it had been.

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* * *

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Author's Notes: Here is the last part of my one-shot (or more like two – hehe).

This story was kind of like an alternative realities. I had fun with the idea, and though this story is short, I had much fun writing it. I have more ideas for this story and could possibility extend it out, but not sure if I will. I guess my muse will decide.

Anyhow, if you have the time, please review. I welcome all opinions and thoughts. Hope all is well with everyone!

_Posted: Friday, 7 June 2013 _


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